BELGRADE -- Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik -- who has been sanctioned by the United States and Britain over alleged destabilization efforts and corruption -- has threatened that he could push for the independence of the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina over a dispute involving a controversial property law.
“We are considering in the most serious terms to make a decision on independence and secede Republika Srpska [from Bosnia] unless the property issue is solved," Dodik said on April 14 while on a visit to Belgrade to meet Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
Republika Srpska has tried multiple times to implement a property law that aims to transfer Bosnian state property to Republika Srpska, despite it being deemed unconstitutional.
Republika Srpska authorities said they were implementing the law in late February. However, it represents a direct challenge to previous decisions by the high representative to Bosnia, Christian Schmidt, to repeal the decree creating the law and to suspend it pending a final decision by Bosnia’s Constitutional Court.
Republika Srpska says the law aims to ensure that properties used by the authorities of the entity, including local governments, public companies, public institutions, and other departments founded by Republika Srpska belong to them.
The country’s Constitutional Court has stated that the national parliament must adopt a property law that would be valid across Bosnia and not one of the country’s two entities.
The 1995 Dayton Agreement ended the Bosnian civil war and established an administrative system under which Bosnia remains partitioned between the Serbian entity -- Republika Srpska -- and the Bosniak-Croat federation, connected by a weak central government.
Dodik has long threatened to seek Republika Srpska's independence from the rest of Bosnia. He rejects the administrative arrangement and the authority of the Office of the High Representative, the international community's overseer of civil and other aspects of the Dayton Agreement.